Corvallis School Board Meeting (October 20, 2022)

001foreign you just have to hit the button for the green light the October 20th 2022 meeting of the Corvallis School Board is called to order at 6 32 pm in the interest of public health and safety for all community members especially for immunocompromised individuals and their families the Corvallis school board will continue to offer a virtual option for board member and in in District Personnel participation additionally public comment is available at some meetings both in person and virtually information information about how to provide public comment is available on the Corvallis School District website the board agenda and packet as well as the link to the district YouTube channel are available on the school board page on the district website public meetings are live streamed on the district's YouTube channel and a recording is posted to

002the same channel typically the day after the meeting I am grateful that this technology makes it possible for more community members to view and participate in school board meetings given the flexibility provided by Oregon law tonight we have director Adams director tomity myself director Sarah finger McDonald and director alabrah in attendance in person um director Baker is excused and we are expecting director White Bear and director Jones to arrive late they had other commitments tonight that they will come straight from there to here so no one none of the board members will be participating virtually tonight the first item on our agenda is acknowledgment of lgbtq i2s plus month this month is acknowledged every November we have passed a resolution last year that includes a requirement that the district acknowledges and celebrates lgbtqi2s plus month

003every November and as a reminder that we will read the resolution this evening Madam chair resolution number 21-1001 Corvallis School District 509-j acknowledgment of lgbtqi2s plus History Month whereas the Corvallis School District recognizes and pays tribute to the significant contributions made in our community by lesbian gay bisexual transgender queer intersex and two-spirit people as well as people from the multitude of other gender and sexual identities lgbtq i2s plus and whereas the Corvallis School District affirms the lgbtqi2s plus students families staff and community members should be valued for all aspects of their identities and whereas lgbtqi2s plus History Month grew out of the establishment of what was then called Gay and Lesbian history by Missouri high school history teacher Rodney Wilson in 1994 and whereas National Coming Out day occurs each October 11th and thank you

004whereas lgbtqi2s plus History Month was first celebrated in school districts within the United States in 2012 and whereas lgbtqi2s plus history month has yet to be proclaimed nationally and whereas lgbtqi2s plus history is not part of standard educational curricula and whereas lgbtqi2s plus History Month provides an opportunity to continue the district's growth in learning about the many contributions of lgbtqi2s plus people in the nation world and local community and whereas the state of Oregon has docked a documented history of anti-lgbtqi2s plus actions and whereas education is a necessary component for creating a more Equitable and anti-racist Community nation and world and whereas the Corvallis school district has made a commitment to equity and anti-racism and whereas the Corvallis school district has a responsibility to honor and respect the diverse histories of our community and foreign

005School District believes each and every student must be celebrated and appreciated for the distinct and vibrant contributions made by sharing cultures language ideas beliefs and values within a school Community therefore let it be resolved that the Board of Education of the Corvallis School District does hereby Proclaim October 2021 as well as each October annually AS lgbtqi2s Plus History Month in the districts and strongly encourages students families staff and community members to join an existing local celebrations and encourages all schools in the district to help highlight this month in grade appropriate ways as well as highlights the contributions of lgbtqi2s Plus peoples to the local community nation and Beyond both historically and in current times adopted by the board of directors of school district number 509j Corvallis of Benton and Lynn counties Oregon at its regular

006meeting the 14th day of October 2021st thank you all so the next item on our agenda is a work session with the public the Corvallis Public Schools Foundation board during the work session with the corbels Corel school public schools Foundation board at times participants will be moving around and around the room and working in small groups so the sound might be limited for people who are watching the stream or who watch the um recording of this meeting tomorrow and later so just be aware that that's how this meeting will go um so welcome to the the school pelvic School donation board um it's great to have you here I always look forward to our Opera opportunities to meet and talk about our shared goals of supporting our kids so the first part of our our

007agenda is talking about your executive director search am I on thank you so much Sarah for those I don't know I think I know everybody here on Becca ghost I'm chair of the Corvallis Public Schools foundation and thank you for having us it's been wonderful the last few years really building that alignment and strategic alignment between our organizations as our whole reason for being is to support what it is you guys are doing every day in the district so I'm actually going to kick this over to our past chair Ashley Chavez who is our chair of the search committee for the new executive director and quickly just to bring everybody up to speed we are so grateful to leave Gifford who was our executive director for seven years and was highly successful and impactful and

008grew this organization in enormous ways and she has now moved on to Lynn Benton Community College as faculty and many thanks to Angela Hibbard our interim executive director who's leading US during this transition period and we are now on the search for our next executive director so I will turn it over to Ashley to talk about where we are in that process hi good evening everyone um this is my fifth year on the schools Foundation board and I'm a little sad to be here talking to you about searching for a new executive director but also really excited because the organization has grown so much over the last decade so much of that thanks to leaf and to the board and to your support and being a partner in that growth um and so to to

009just kick things off a little bit I want to give you some broader context so when Leaf was hired there was one part-time accounting specialist with the schools foundation and the executive director position and that was it and now our organization has grown so much not only do we have those two positions still but we also have a full-time development director Kim Holmes who if you haven't met before she was able to attend with us tonight she's been a fabulous addition to the staff and really having a full-time development director means that so much of the oh I forgot to mention also um currently vacant but we also have an executive a part-time executive assistant many of you knew Hannah with the schools foundation so now there's a whole team to lead and because we

010have a development director the previous position really was geared towards finding someone who had that fundraising skill set because that was the bulk of the work done by the executive director but now while that is still an important piece of the role it's more about bringing together a team in a cohesive Manner and working strategically with the district and alignment of our goals to make sure that we're really pursuing the path forward that we all want to see our students and families succeed on so it really was kind of stunning to myself and everyone on the hiring committee as we reviewed like things like the job description and the the way we did recruitment the last time and and looking at it now to see how much cpsf has grown over the years um so

011I'm just gonna lay out our road map of you know the search process and how we've uh started working through that and give a little bit of um insight into your involvement in the future and then we have three questions where we'd really like to ask for your input about as some of our most valued stakeholders what you would like to see in a future executive director so the first thing we've already done and have a well moved past is the establishing of a hiring committee so myself and several other board members have formed this committee um I'm the chair of it and everything we do kind of goes back to the executive committee for approval and then we that way we can move through things very swiftly rather than needing to take all of

012our items and sort of wait for every single board meeting to get everyone's approval on it so the board has been very supportive of empowering us to take on that work and it's it's a lovely group of folks extremely talented diverse identities and I'm really proud of the work that we've been doing so we formed and have been starting to develop our hiring process and that included reviewing our job description where are we going to post what kind of you know approach are we going to take are we going to hire a like a recruitment firm where we're going to take on the role ourselves just kind of working through all of those details and so at this point we're quite far into the process and we are hoping to post the position by the

013week of October the 24th so guess what that's next week time just flies when you're having fun so we plan to post the job for 30 days and undergo a very robust recruitment attempt to bring forth a very diverse and Broad group of applicants a nationwide search of course we sure hope to see a lot of local faces but we believe that the places organization is in that there might be some really great National candidates out there as well who could be interested in this organization and then you know we're really looking at the bulk of our interviewing taking place in the latter half of um perhaps some screening in the beginning part of December and then early January the holidays in there kind of and you know as this is a non-profit Education Association

014school breaks are a big factor into that as well so the timeline is a little elongated through that and then we hope to hire and on board sometime in the range of January through March depending on how all of that goes and so one of the things I wanted to share with you is that we are really focused on marketing this position so that way people can really understand what an appealing job it is I think we're we're very fortunate to have such a wonderful partnership with our school district and be in the community of Corvallis and so I think a lot of folks will really be interested in it if they can understand the the appeal of the job um but I did want to just briefly read to you and this is the

015only thing I'm going to read to you don't worry um one of the uh statements we're going to include in our recruitment because we really are very focused on understanding that our resume does not present the full picture of what a person brings to the table and we're really truly interested in someone who can be a Visionary leader for us so so one of the things that's going to be included in our job postings is this statement Studies have shown that women and people of color are less likely to apply for jobs unless they meet every one of the qualifications listed we are most interested in finding the best candidate for the job and that candidate may be one who comes from a less traditional background if you meet key qualifications for the job and

016believe you would be the best fit we encourage you to apply and use your cover letter or introductory email to explain how you will accomplish parts of the job for which you have less experience and then of course we encourage them to contact us and talk more about it if they'd like to um so I'm just really proud of the work we've been doing and then as we start to proceed into the recruitment piece of things we'll really start to work in Earnest on what the interview process will look like how stakeholders will be involved and we've developed a communication plan both to keep our donors informed and and everyone else um so at that time I'll pause before I ask you the three questions that we have for you and we'd love your feedback

017on just to see ask if you have any general questions on the recruitment process that myself or others can answer for you okay I actually I mean I welcomed everyone I failed to ask people to introduce themselves and we have a new board member and so I don't know if we want to take a step back and give everybody a chance to interview them do some sales because you may not know whatever you want so I'm gonna apologize for that so if you want to just go around really quickly sure um so I'm Sarah finger McDonald I am the chair of the Corvallis School Board member hey and this was on me too Sarah sorry I just should have thought of that as well so Becca goes um chair of the cpsf my name is

018Frank caresco and I'm originally from Corvallis and I moved I was away for 15 years and we moved back to this area because of the school system but I haven't been in this school yet this looks great congratulations yeah Mindy Hamlin board member and this is my fifth year also Ashley Kim Holmes development director just joined in April very glad to be here and as I said earlier I'm Ashley Chavez I'm the past chair Hi I'm the new guy I'm Mark Mark o'heen I grew up in Corvallis went to public schools here moved away for a long time that moved back recently and I'm really excited to be part of this part of this team both with the foundation and the interactions what I expect to have with you folks I think the fact that

019both chairs forgot to do the introduction of the beginning is indicative of the close relationship between these two boards it's like hey we're getting together with friends great let's do some work that'd be great no my name's Vince Adams I'm a Corvallis School Board member I'm very sorry we'll come back around that's okay Melissa harder assistant superintendent I'm Shawna tommeny a co-vice chair along with lahui white bear with the school board and I was a Corvallis K through kindergarten through 12th grade graduate grew up in the district myself and have a daughter in the district as well and I'm Ryan Ross I'm the superintendent and I have one child in the district at this time um so one of the things I'd be curious about Ashley is if we wanted to move people around so

020that smaller conversations can happen and then everybody reports out or because of our numbers if it's easier just to have it as an open questions I think either would work for this portion do you have a preference I think for this portion it probably could be fine that it's a group discussion larger group or a smaller group and before I kick it back to Ashley Ashley I just want to one thing overlaying these questions that I think would be good for everyone to know is that it's so exciting that the foundation board is aligned and we're really wanting to launch this organization in support of our kids and the work you guys are doing into its next chapter so when you hear that we're looking at a national search and when you start to see

021some of the things we're targeting in terms of recruiting this person it really is we want to launch and so when you see these questions you know we'd love you guys to be thinking big thinking bold that's definitely where the foundation is so I just wanted to that's the overlay foreign questions before about the interview process and I do have a question about that and I'm curious especially with your dedication to really elevating maybe non-traditional candidates in this role are you thinking about how that might play out in non-traditional interviews that really allow folks to come and shine with their skills yeah we absolutely are and so we are still the actual interview process is still very much in development but it'll be far more than you know sort of the traditional sit in front

022of a group of folks and answer questions that really only gives you a very small insight into a person's talents so we absolutely will be doing a variety of different kinds of things and Mark actually suggested a couple of really great ones the other day to me so we're taking notes and I'm excited to work on that so yeah I actually have a couple of couple questions one I'm just curious what's the decision-making process do all the trustees make that decision or I I just I I don't know the bylaws I guess sure so we've hired uh we in our bylaws it does say that the the entire board will you know make the final decision um and so we will have an all board vote and everyone will be involved in the process but

023what we have done in the meantime is established a hiring committee and we've said you know for everything minus the very final decision at this point and some decisions we made early on they're turning over that empowerment to the hiring committee as long as we also have approval from the executive committee just so we could proceed through the work more more quickly as you know it can be very difficult sometimes to call special meetings and do votes via email and all that can get pretty complicated pretty fast so but we have really ensured transparency you know our meetings are open to the whole board if they want to attend and provide input we're sending details and people can provide feedback we have surveys so everyone's very this is one of the most engaged boards I've

024ever been on and it's really incredible edible and so it's it's going really well so far and I credit that to the work of my colleagues they're they're pretty awesome to work with great then my second question is we're at the end of the process are we going to have a opportunity to meet with finalists if you get it down to two or three people are you going to bring them into community and have our the stakeholder group have a chance to interact with those individuals yeah and so like I said we're still developing the interview process but I think there's every intent to have a meet and greet session because I I think not only is important for stakeholders to meet the the candidates but I think it's important that they meet us you

025know you and understand who they'll be working with I feel like that's incredibly vital and necessary in order to ensure we have a good fit and just to add to that the fact that we're having this meeting right now is a huge help for us in recruiting the kind of leader we're trying to recruit to show that we're not out there just doing what we think makes sense we are here in strategic alignment with the board the school board that's doing the work on the ground that's going to be more attractive to you know the kinds of candidates I think we're going to be looking at thank you okay so I have three questions and I think maybe we could just everyone could take some turns sharing answers or you know feel feel free to

026pass if you don't want to provide an answer um so here can you remind me how much time we have for this section before we move into those other questions I think it might help us all if we kind of know what our time limit is okay perfect yeah I I just got the whole session ends at 7 40. so perfect okay great um excellent so I think that just kind of gives us a sense of where we're at so the first question we have for you is could you please share with us the three most important qualities and really highlighting the word qualities they're not qualifications um for the cpsf executive director r and this is one of the things we'll kind of keep in mind as we're interviewing and talking to candidates and

027screening applications and that kind of thing I'll jump in first with a really lame first one you know and this is really when I stopped and thought about the this this question I couldn't help but have um Leaf's performance pop into my head and I in all the interactions I've had with her even before she worked because she was my colleague who at OSU Extension Leaf is a tremendous communicator she's not only graceful in the way that she communicates but she's also very precise and I think that really stood out in you know Hands Across Corvallis the way she represented the work of that Foundation at that and then in particular and then also in this venue as well so I think I know it's cliche we always want a highly skilled communicator but I

028think that there's more there there's that's a deep of course deeply important quality but I think there's replacing Leaf is going to be very difficult so in that respect so there that's a good place to start so I think related to communication and on the the listing side someone who can really listen deeply to the community and not just can but truly is interested and dedicated to listening whether it's to students to family members to Educators to their Partners here on the board in District leadership both to identify opportunities where gaps can be filled or gaps can be identified that maybe we aren't even aware of sometimes as well as that dedication to really building relationships through that listening and identifying opportunities for partnership for giving and for giving back so all our answers are

029going to sound the same um I had communication in part because in the Hands Across Corvallis um you not only did Leif do an amazing job of communicating wet the Corvallis Public Schools Foundation board has done and your mission but through that work has really highlighted things and you know goals and values and work that's being done by the school district and so you know intercommunication in her role as a as the leader of this Foundation she she really highlighted and shared the values that our school district has too at the same time so I think that was um a really valuable thing for us in our relationship with the in partnership with the Public Schools Foundation board um and I had this sort of falls falls on what Shauna was saying I had written

030down Coalition and team building and finding those connections in the community that maybe aren't the obvious ones but um you know I feel like the opportunities that those connections in the community things like finding a way to get fresh produce to families that was through making connections and building a team working for families and so I think being able to sort of look around and see what resources we have and build those connections and teams is is really key and has enabled the foundation to do some amazing things for our kids I think qualities and qualifications can overlap law so I'm trying to weed out qualities out of qualifications one thing I think is a quality is the ability tactful an ed successful of ad is a tactical executive director can really understand nuances within

031the community within the district within different stakeholders institutional donors and individual donors the intention of a meeting the intention of a setting or an event I think that's just really important and you can't see it on a resume uh probably you cannot hear it in a in a questionnaire when you ask for references so I think that's a really important quality the other quality I think is being able to Foster connections and relationships and and really work on it long term sometimes those donations need I don't know 7 8 20 touches in different ways and being able to really see the end goal there that's another quality I think it's really crucial a quality that I've seen in executive directors superintendents and and uh uh and CEOs is not managing your board but knowing where

032your board is and working with them so uh I've had a really great front seat to see how you function your efficients organized uh know the role of the board and you don't go into operations but we're recruiting an ed who could Outlast all of us and in that sense really understanding that they know what board governance is and how to work with the board could be important frankly I would say I would not put it as at the highest list because you're really you're going to be the greatest mentors I can imagine for the next Ed however for the 80 to really know like okay here's where the board is we don't have consensus yet maybe we need to Foster some more information uh I know sometimes uh thinking about I need to keep

033the train moving is not helpful when you work with the board sometimes you need to slow the train or actually find out if we're not on the right tracks I don't know what to call that quality it's definitely not quote managing your board it's really understanding the board executive director of Dynamics and and how to make sure it's always successful no matter where you are where the institution is or where your board is thank you and go ahead Ryan before you move on and I know I'll have other opportunities to participate in this process but as I've been thinking about that question in particular I think two things stand out to me one is a belief in all kids um and that I think is and that may have been shared while I was out

034of the room but um to me the one of the things that has been phenomenal about the foundation in our work together has been that belief in all kids and also you've taken a stance many times as social workers so we've asked for things that families and Community needs and you've been able to meet the help us to meet those needs in a way that we can't meet them and so as you think about who this person is it's it's those um closely held beliefs that show up again and again in decision making and that's one of the things I've really valued um I just want as we were talking about this too I was thinking about I sort of had this written down but I hadn't really figured out how I want to say

035it but somebody especially if it's somebody who comes from another Community to Corvallis um yeah I think one of the real strengths of the foundation has been that your work has really supported the values and the goals of the school district and so someone especially if they or someone who's coming from another Community into Corvallis who is willing to take the time and really learn what we value and what we're working towards for our kids so that so that this continued collaboration and support um that we've really has really blossomed in the last few years between the foundation and the school district can continue it's not other I'm just going I'm I'm going to touch back on what was shared just just now research shows that continuity is good for student outcomes and so I

036think you know thinking about the foundation thinking about the relationship with the work that the district does nothing's broken is it perfect no nothing's ever perfect but you're not trying to fix anything and so continuity needs to be a theme so you're not looking for a fixer someone who's going to want to create radical change you want someone who's going to come in keep what's good and take us to the next level that's a really lovely concise way to put it I think yeah is it okay if I share one final um I know this has come out as a theme a little bit through some of the others but just to also name it someone with a strong dedication to diversity equity and belonging who not only in words models that but also in

037their actions in the way in their relationships and everything that they do and I think along with that come someone who's willing to be vulnerable and to really Center themselves as a learner and to really have that emotional intelligence to both be creative and fun and joyful but also to step back and really meet people where they are in those moments someone who elevates the voices of others and just the one final thing that that stood out to me too is I know that we have a phenomenal model for what this person might look like based on a past individual who's been part of this work for so long and so I guess I'm just thinking about maybe a reminder or a caution for all of us to think about making sure we give space

038to whoever comes in not to not to think about them filling someone else's shoes because those are big shoes to fill but to give them space to bring their own shoes one thing I want to mention and I feel like ties in a lot of what we talked about not everything but one of the things we actually added to the job description was an entire section on relationships and really tried to describe all the kinds of different relationships that this position really forms with different people both internal EXT external stakeholders staff I mean the list goes on and on and so really trying to get people who might focus on that relationship building the consensus building fostering this sense of like trust and teamwork so I felt like that really tied in a lot of

039what you were talking about and then on that thread and this is in my notes as well is that leveraging relationships and Partnerships to reach strategic goals I mean why do we have these relationships because we're trying to get work done and it's fun too but I mean that's what we're trying to do and you're going to want to look for demonstrated ability to do that is that in their background okay so I'm going to move us on to the next question um so we want to you know we've been doing our work to ensure that we've identified the stakeholders that we want to involve in this process and how they're involved might be diff totally different depending on who we're talking about but we also want to pose the question to you about what

040critical stakeholders we should involve in the selection of the next executive director that way we know you might have ideas that we haven't thought of yet so any any stakeholders you have in mind please let us know I mean I got a hold on the laundry list here but I mean um I think him probably having the superintendent or a Susan assistant superintendent on would be probably really good um a student our student services director or staff someone who's working directly with kids making those miracles happen on the ground any of those folks um you know your partner organizations Better Than I do but I mean Casa Latino unidos COI Jackson Street some folks from there having them sitting in because I'm just thinking about the the kids that are struggling the most are in

041the toughest situations I put Julie Arena from The Hope down that also brings a county perspective in uh maybe someone else from the from the county that I haven't thought to the health director maybe um maybe one of our teaching and learning directors although their Department name changed so I'm using the wrong jargon but yeah and then maybe a school board member that has experience in doing executive searches or faculties you know staff searches so those were my 80s this is great I'll build on that think up yeah everybody the Edie now everybody's a sample of people the ad would interact with internally would be great within the district um I would say this with the caution that's maybe donors whether institutional or uh big donors is important but also with this idea that you

042need to do what's best for the institution the northern might be thinking about a specific Dimension uh so being cautious about that but I think it they they bring valuable perspective one way or the other and also with that comes in other thoughts which is stakeholders that we don't have right now but as we launch to the next big thing is there any Regional or states or Corvallis stakeholders that we would like to recruit and have and and their partnership will be valuable and we see that and maybe having a representative to contribute to this process might be helpful in two ways their perspective also fostering the partnership as a secondary benefit also I'm thinking about potential names from the Eds of Foundations in the region something about Chris and other people who might be

043really valuable because they know the job the only difference is education of course and that's important and it's critical but running a foundation have some similarities so I think their perspective and understanding of the local context would be a very valuable similarly EDS of sister foundations and I think with Leaf we worked with Albany I think Oregon City have one so anyones that we know of they might be very valuable I know we're very unique in the magnitude that we do there might be some Foundation EDS School Foundation EDS across Oregon that might be valuable um all of that and I um I was thinking about who is when I was thinking about stakeholders I was also thinking about the stakeholders as um the the people who've kind of been served by the work of

044the foundation and so you know our student services and the you know the people who have worked closely with the foundation to do the work to support our families and our students experiencing homelessness and you know that group of people who really understand the impact that the foundation has had on students and families um you know the the the teachers who have benefited from some of the grants that have really seen the opportunities that they can bring to their students because of the you know the efforts of the foundation when I'm thinking about stakeholders just a question back to you before sharing some thoughts I had are you thinking about involving Folks at different levels and I'm thinking about different time commitments knowing that if you were involved to involve a teacher they couldn't sit

045on every interview but maybe there's a really creative way that there's interaction with teachers yeah we are definitely considering the fact that you know and Sammy brought up a great point right we want to make sure we have donors involved but how deeply they're involved you know is something we want to be cautious with so with every group we're going to look at you know how can we ensure that we've heard their voice or they've had a chance to provide input but that may look different for each group okay no that sounds great and that that just aligned with some of the thoughts I had when I was thinking about and just recommended stakeholders in terms of building off of what Sarah shared around maybe teachers who have been recipients of Grants before and flipping

046that for teachers in terms of being able to just show what they've done and having that opportunity for that informal interaction with those candidates to just see how are they interacting with the teachers how are they doing in those environments even with the students going and visiting some of the projects that have been done and letting students showcase them and getting feedback from the students on what that felt like for them that interaction with the folks who are here visiting as well as observing could be some creative ways to do that and to involve those really critical stakeholders students and teachers who may not have an opportunity excuse me to be really involved at a with a strong time commitment thanks um I just sorry I'm going to point out that we're now half more

047than halfway through our time and the next question is one that I can see us talking about for a very long time so if we want to get to our part of the um discussion or just ask us to be as concise as possible because we're gonna end up losing an opera opportunity to hear from the foundation board about our questions well and one thing we could do if you want is we could um if others agree we could always move that last bullet point into our small discussions as well and that may allow us to discuss it a little bit further but happy to bring it up here and we can all kind of give concise answers whichever you prefer I mean I think it sort of does fall in with the goals and

048of the district so um if people are comfortable doing that um yeah yeah I think we might be able to discuss it more yeah [Laughter] yeah well on that note thank you so much for all that input and we'll be sure to make use of it really really appreciate your time all right so then for the second portion we have two documents one that we've been working from which are the questions that we have put together related to our school board goals and then I also have a copy of the school board goals for you to have in in terms of the conversation and so we're in the process right now of reviewing the goals that we have and looking at if they continue to hold true to where we want to continue to head

049are there revisions are there changes that need to be made and so over the next several months we're going to have Community groups that are giving us feedback and this felt like a great opportunity to hear from all of you and the roles you play in the community some of you as parents some of you as Educators or past Educators and community members and so what I thought would be beneficial is to spend some time in small group conversations about that and then sharing out so as you share out recognizing um the time that we have maybe highlights from the conversation rather than specifics to each question because ideally our goal is to get feedback from you that again helps to inform our decisions as we're I'm revising these goals and then we'll embed that

050third question that you had as well into that discussion so what I'm going to ask in just a minute is I'm going to have Vince move over to work with Market Ashley I'm going to ask Shawna to sit in Frank's seat and to work with Kim and Mindy and then I'm going to have Sammy stay where he's at and work with Becca and Angela and then I'm going to have Frank come sit next to Sarah for a one-on-one conversation um and then we're gonna give you about 15 minutes to do that and then we'll have another um eight to ten minutes to share out so that's the the plan for this portion of time any questions about that you all know I've been an educator right I saw it in your eyes okay and for

051this portion also if you need to turn your mic off um just because of the viewers it will be less um just less noise for them to hear but they'll also have a chance to hear you report out which I think is the most valuable part anyhow foreign okay if you can finish up the thought you're working through are we ready to move on Shauna Sammy Vince thank you everyone it's it's nice to have conversations with people um so I guess why don't we start with since I called Shawna out first as I was telling everybody to finish up the Shawna Kim Mindy group um who wants to share but um did we do it by question I don't know our group didn't really go by question yeah okay yeah I think ideally a summary

052would be yeah some a quick summary turn this on and then you can add on um so I would say that our summary is that we feel like there's actually really good alignment between the the goals of the foundation and the goals of the school board and that the way the board goals are written are are very helpful to us and helping direct where we need to focus so we we talked a lot about um helping our donors understand [Music] you know where our marching orders come from if you would like we didn't use that word but why we're doing what we're doing and yes we are aligned with the school board goals and the district's goals so you can you know kind of trust us trust us with your donations because it's serving the

053the needs of the school district the students the staff great thank you but we're good so Vince Mark and Ashley's group I think I had the best group these guys are awesome I had like these great quotes here um definitely uh the same sort of message that that the district goals are an essential lens for the foundation to help them prioritize it doesn't mean that the foundation has the same priorities of the district two separate organizations that approach the work in different ways but it's it's an important lens you know they're the second question was around Community Values and having how Community Values get into the goals and just a wonderful conversation that these goals the values find their way into the goals because the district has been intentional about creating strong Partnerships in the

054communities and there's this implicit reciprocal relationship where we're we're hearing the values because we're working with our partners and at the same time we're sharing that back out and so it's almost like it's unconscious that we're building values that and I'm going to quote here the goals are aimed at what we want the community to be like we're building the citizens of Corvallis tomorrow for tomorrow and so it was just a wonderful Touchstone thank you Mark for that quote um the last piece I want to share is an aha moment from Ashley um as she was thinking about Lessons Learned and we just had this moment where we realized that um this really great partnership has really expanded what we think is possible and that you know that's really exciting and really humbling at the

055same because now we realize we have a lot of work to do that there's more that we can get done by working together so it was a really great conversation thank you both Sammy Becca and Angela okay I've been volunteled by Sammy okay you follow up um well we started our conversation really thinking through some of Sammy's big ideas for so we took question three and I just want to note that it was so cool to hear the big thinking of by 2032 every sophomore on path to be bilingual when they graduate we talked about some other areas of potential Focus for funding going forward disability ideas of IEPs for everyone be they disability or not you know these are Big Big Ideas so I just want to throw those out there that was really

056neat and then we talked a lot you'll hear common themes that we feel there's a lot of alignment between the foundation and the district and the school board and that this the board goals really do help the foundation in terms of you know we are here to support you guys are the ones doing the work and the educating we're here to build the resources connections and leverage those for the good of the kids in the community so um the one area we started to hone in on on the goals is you know first they're so comprehensive it's hard to think of improving on them right because they're really good and they they really do reflect I think what we want to see in our community but our group started talking about you know what's kind

057of different now than even five years ago and the political polarization the the lack of spaces for discourse people operating in bubbles and education is really the place where all of that comes together and you already have some of this and in the goals right when you look at real world learning and you look at number four it talks about critical thinking collaboration communication and then in goal two where you talk about increasing and supporting student voice empowerment and Leadership but we talked about is there a way to call that out a bit in terms of you know how do we create the space for Viewpoint diversity and really what do we want we talked about we can't really say citizenship unless we're saying global citizenship but you know how do we want to create

058these skills for these kids that are going to go out into this world so you can probably say that better Sammy you said it the best way I can think of it I just want to highlight how really this reminds me of Brian reminding us you go to different supermarkets depending on socioeconomics neighborhoods we uh We Gather with our friends and co-workers but it's cool the public school is the only remaining place where everybody belongs and everybody from the community gets to hear from each other about their points of view so it's really good reminder it's something that we need to ascribe into our goals we need to utilize that opportunity to get them to be more involved thank you I think you highlighted it very well thank you Frank do you want to talk

059you want me to talk I'll let you do it Sarah but before she does I'd like to say that I derailed Sarah we didn't quite follow the the protocol I actually have but how I don't you don't often have the ear of the school board president so I thought I'm going to take advantage of this so yeah I think actually I took some things out of our discussion we did I mean I think we had a really good discussion but what I took out of that related to the questions was when we talked about a lesson that Frank has learned he talked about really seeing a disconnect between the community and the school district and this challenge of really making the public schools a place where everyone belongs and how we can um and we

060we talked about how you really don't especially if you don't have kids in school it's hard to really feel invested in school and understand what's going on here and um that getting that information out and you helping build an understanding of it's we don't have the school and then the community the schools are you know in the community built into the fabric of the community and and figuring out a way and our goals to um to sort of increase that investment not just monetary but you know emotional and social investment in our schools from our community um we also talked about one of Frank's goals as the treasurer is to make some of the big donations it that the Foundation is able to make sustainable and so I sort of see our goal setting is

061really feeding that goal because as we can really Express to the community and to potential donors that these are the goals of our school district they're reflecting the goals of our community we have these opportunities to build programs that will really serve kids and help us meet those goals and move them forward we it helps you potentially build the opportunity for donors to say yes I want to invest in that I want to figure out a way to make this an endowment or whatever it is so that this work can continue and we're not just relying on one-time money every time that it makes it harder to build a program and make sure that that's going to stay there so I thought that was sort of an important piece on how the school board goals

062can really impact the work you all do and then how that can then turn around and impact our district um yeah so I think those were the two sort of big pieces that we talked about do you have anything to add or you or yeah just again to share appreciation for you coming and joining us tonight um I think this is the third year that we've been doing these or it's more than that okay we did them in person oh yeah so we've been doing this for a while but every time um the conversation is Rich and really valuable and really just appreciate the partnership that we have I see it as I while I recognize it's two different organizations I see it as a partnership between um the work that we do together for

063kids and how valuable that is one of the things that going back to one of the questions you asked about who should be involved in the process um one of the things that I find just continue to find remarkable is that you always have remarkable people joining the foundation as someone leaves someone else comes on is also incredible and so I don't think that's a question for us as much as a question for you how have you been able to continue to recruit such great people to be members of the foundation board because it is an creditable group and I don't know how you continue to do that year after year but it's it's true really true I can tell you Ryan it's not the pay [Laughter] thank you guys so much for your partnership

064we appreciate the time tonight thank all of you for coming um you know as was demonstrated by our um forgetting to do introductions at the beginning it does really feel like a comfortable relationship um and I think it serves our kids well so thank you for your time the um School Board take a five minute break and come back with our bond update foreign the meeting of the Corvallis School Board is back in session so we are now um getting a bond update from Dale gutendal good evening Madam chair and members of the board for having me um school's been open for more than a month and got some pictures of the actual kids in them so that's exciting how's that all right Bessie Coleman um that playground is taking forever but there's actually people

065working on it this week so that's good this was a function of crew shortage and that playground tile is almost done they're putting finishing touches in we're hoping that it's within a week and then the other picture shows the the nice Playfield out there but it's not going to get Seated on purpose because it wouldn't have really had a chance to do anything so it'll be protected with probably a mulch and then next spring it'll it'll come in at the right time uh Leticia Carson not only do we have a fantastic event there this evening but there's some neat pictures with kids in them here cafeteria counseling and Art and Science the the public that toured this evening was dazzled so that was exciting did it I don't think you folks talked about the event

066yeah you could do that later okay well I what you want to share anyway there was a fantastic event um kind of kind of wrapped around the unveiling of the art and the renaming of the school and there was speakers and singing and um just a very moving event so I was glad to be a part of to see that anyway yeah I felt really nice to have folks who came from both leticia's ancestors to community to folks that have been involved in the construction all together because they all came with sort of a different lens on what what the event was about primarily it was a renaming event but it also offered an opportunity to share the spaces with people who hadn't been able to see those before and in some instances it was

067kind of like what you and Frank were talking about it was community members who typically wouldn't be in our schools but they were there because of the renaming event and so they got an opportunity to see the spaces as well so it worked really nicely that way well-tended and it was great it was well attended and I think we were talking the board members were talking about that it filled our cups that it felt really good and it was talking to um Joey Labrador one of Leticia Carson's descendants who donated the art that is gorgeous um he was saying your my grandfather would never have imagined that we would have a school named after one of our ancestors and here we are and that was felt really good and then when Angel Harris said how

068meaningful it was for her to have a black woman who felt who fought for her ability to belong in a place honored um with the school naming after her who makes it possible for her to have a place also and I there was just a lot that happened this evening at that renaming that was really meaningful and it made me really grateful for everyone we made a vote to change a name but it has been so much more than that and a lot of people have done a lot of work to make that tonight happen and the the events that will happen going forward and that part being present in the weaving which is amazing listening to the stories of what that means um so thank you for everyone involved including the people who built

069our school um it was it was a good night thank you um there's the gym it's just so nice to it's so much lighter than it ever was before and it's just great to see Catherine Jones Harrison more pictures with kids having fun and learning and teachers lounging Adams is coming along quite well I don't know if you realize this but the new addition construction had kind of been put on the side while the team focused on getting ready for the the new school year so that put more emphasis in the building and in the modulars and all of that but now that that's uh now that that's all done then they are actively working on the framing so it's going vertical Franklin um that patio on the left is a collaboration between osu's engineering

070team and the district the they're they're developing new concrete using recycled materials and all kinds of interesting things and so OSU donated the concrete and then fortis's concrete contractor placed it and finished it there were students out there and professors watching the the poor there's probably three or four different types of concrete that you're looking at there they're going to test how it performs over time so it'll be interesting I don't know if it's installed yet but there will be a tent over this area so it's more useful in the winter and then science classrooms come along real nicely in the right side of that picture Franklin um Sports Court got re-striped there was that was pretty much an active staging area for the contractor for so far but now that that's clear restriping happened

071reopen those cords the middle picture is neat because it's not only here at Frank at Franklin but it's at all the elementaries they're going to get one of these recycled benches that came out of this site over on the corner I remember looking at those things uh way back when and I'm glad that they they came came back into the projects the gym beams uh and then the admins admin space is coming along nicely I guess that's it for Franklin Mountain View the photographer got there late early in this case um concrete is hard to get these days and so the schedules are often deep into the night it's fortunate this was a rural area and they're didn't have the problems that we often have in downtown and neighborhood settings College Hill lots of lots

072of information on this one Todd construction is doing great for us they're plowing ahead and tackling a tough project so we're happy to have them join the team for this one Urban Farm we're getting closer to letting them occupy the modular that was placed there um the city requires that we get some 88 parking established new sidewalks along the street to be compliant with Ada code as well so those things are happening now and should be done within probably three weeks across your fingers the the urban farm program is functioning anyway I mean they're basically farmers and they're out there working working their hearts out demolition inside and then just tons of lumber showing up getting ready to do the reframing work in in the building as well it's the underground happening look at all

073the big pipes in the middle there those will all be buried and help contain storm water and outer classrooms starting to take shape which is nice and then this is that our Urban Farm modular I mentioned a moment ago Financial I don't know if you saw in the report we did dip into reserves after this Summer's efforts to the tune of about 600 000. it wasn't a big surprise to to the bond team we kind of saw that coming we didn't know what it would be but deep in the middle of a quick summer remodel things like that do happen um still within our our forecasts and we intend to deliver all the bond promises probably some of the biggest changes that that ate up some of that money at Franklin there was I think

074I may have mentioned this earlier but there was a lot of structural deficiencies in that original building plumbers had notched two-thirds of the studs away and the exterior walls you know for hundreds of feet and so those buildings were just standing on very little that's been corrected um all the buildings that a lot of them discovered more Asbestos and that stuff crops up frequently um Bessie Coleman ate up probably the bulk of the money this time and which was kind of odd since that building was open back in December site work stuff so um last month I think I showed you a photo of spaghetti in a ceiling at Franklin well there's a lot of spaghetti underground at Bessie Coleman in the Aspen intersection so just tons of pipes and wires and phone and cable

075and you name it it's under there the cities as built drawings for all that stuff were inadequate so there's been just tons of research it's also caused a lot of time negotiating with the city to come up with the fixes for all that some of the utilities Can't Be Moved some can that also takes time and money to to move things at present three of the four intersection traffic signal poles are proceeding there's still one left that they're trying to sort out it has to do with the phone company's lines the city wants them moved and we think we could probably work around them so there's a lot of negotiation going on right now you know that project will drift into into this year if again fingers fingers crossed um the other one was a

076choice we made when we contracted for Bessie Coleman we had optimistically assumed that we could reuse the soil that was on site and that turned out not to be the case so we're in the process of importing quite a bit of topsoil for that Sports field you saw a moment ago so why couldn't you reuse the soil just lots of rocks and they tend to migrate up up over time okay which is interesting we didn't think we needed a sports field with a bunch of rocks okay yeah and it was very it was very clay also but that um just a choice we made way back when to try to bring the thing into budget so not all the choices are the right ones but usually those are the biggest ticket items and then we

077have included in that is the forecast for thing for issues we're still trying to solve including that Aspen one so we've we've counted for those we just don't know precisely what the solutions are uh this is a duplicate slide from last time and I just stuck it in here to indicate what's still going on and none of that's changed so that's that's good that's good I think that's my last slide any questions on that short report so I two slides back I you know I think it you said all Bond promises will be delivered I think that that may be the first time we've seen that in print on the slide and I think that's a real milestone it's at the same reaction that you might pop up it's like when your staff says we

078got this you know and that kind of obviates the question that I that I had is because there's lots of portents of recession and things like that and I'm just but we're at a point in this project where it sounds like you know we have contracts already Inked and we're kind of locked in on price the bulk of the risk has gone um something really bad happens I think we're going to be fine and you had a really good discussion at the beginning of the report about that about where we are risk wise and that we're we're actually in a really good place so yeah we just need to be real conservative on adding things at this point just don't do it until we know for sure the bond promises will be delivered that's a

079key element to Major decision making at the bond leadership level so if we're thinking about doing something we we always look back at that and make sure we're going to achieve the goals before we say yep yeah the others and on that points I just want to clarify we are not tapping in any funds from the general fund it's purely from the bond funds or any matching grants or Capital Improvements uh grants that came with with the package of the bond right correct there's a fair amount of money coming in like from Energy Trust and then release of SB 1149 energy dollars basically those show up in your account but you can't spend them until the state authorizes it and that's we're getting quite a bit of that recovery through the Bond as well wonderful

080thank you it's helped swell the overall bond funds for to do the work so I have a question about the patio at Franklin I think it's really cool that we have this partnership with OSU and students are involved um but the other part of me is thinking we've got four different types of experimental concrete out there do we have an agreement with them if one of those types of concrete fails I admit I do not know I did not negotiate that particular ly I would think that might not be the case but but the concrete is not extraordinary it's it still looks and feels like concrete and it should wear just fine for a patio application it's not vehicular and it saved us I don't know fifteen or twenty thousand dollars if I recall so

081that could replace a panel or two if there was a problem down the way others anyone else thank you thank you always a great part of the meeting to hear the bond update next we have our bias response update with Melissa and marcian there's a lot of conversation about the most comfortable chair in the room so here we are closer to you I love it I'm figuring out how to do this please please be patient okay hi everybody um I hope that you uh all took some time to take a look at the board report it was um it was just kind of some basic information um we're gonna I'm gonna expand a lot here in the in the slideshow and marcian's gonna expand also her focus is going to be mostly on what our

082students are doing and how they're supporting our efforts for bias incident response so um I'm gonna going now that I've figured out how to use the machine here we are so what I wanted to start with and I think you read the story The biased incident report for the board is that this is probably our third year of well it is our third year and our third iteration of how are we going to make sure that we are receiving the bias incidents reports in a timely manner and responding to them the way that we're supposed to based on policy so this year I feel like this is our best effort marsan we um we did yes there's a lot of people to think we'll be doing that along the way one of them sitting on

083the school board so um we uh we did a we had an incident last year that really kind of um rocked us marcina Marciano and I were pretty um involved in it um in different ways and it kind of it continued not the incident but the um reverberations continued through the year Marcy and I Ann and I took a a good amount of time to sit down with students who were involved and talk to them about process and how bias incident reporting was looking for them and they were very clear that they're not they weren't reporting bias incidents and they weren't doing it because they didn't feel safe to do that and they also worried that um they didn't they didn't have faith that leaders were going to take these incidents seriously and respond to

084them appropriately so we listened to that and um these are leaders and these are leaders you've seen here before and that you've interacted with in safe groups and they had a lot of really good things to say when it came to how we needed to change so over the summer we worked diligently to create a process that was focused on accessibility to our students most importantly they're first on the list here they are first when I think about this the bias incident reporting this year I wanted we have a new website and that's fantastic web page and that's great but that wasn't my goal my goal was how can kids access this report and file a bias incident report in the easiest most efficient way and that's what the focus is on you'll see that

085as we move through the for through the presentation so with the focus on accessibility we wanted to make sure that the bias incident reporting was available to students parents and the community we added a link to all our websites really it's the complaint link which is on every website anyway if you click it it takes you to the complaint page and then right there it says are you filing a bias incident click that one so um that's really not for our kids though I mean it is but what I'm saying is our students need it to be even more efficient as far as finding the button and making a report so one of the things you read in the report I sent to the board is that by the end of this month there will

086be a canvas button available on all of our students Chromebooks grade 6 through 12 in their canvas LMS that allows them to file an incident report from if it's happening at the desk over there they can click that and put it in and they can put it in anonymously or they can ask to um they can identify themselves so that they can have a full response we're going to talk a little bit about our push to make sure our kids see this and know that it exists and you saw some of the posters but we'll see them bigger here in this report the other piece that I wanted to recognize was that reporting anonymously there is a lot that we can gain from Anonymous reporting because we might not be able to go through the

087full process and take care of a person who was harmed specifically but we can collect data that we can then turn over to a school and say hey there seems to be a lot of the n-word being used in the cafeteria on particular days of the week and we can collect that data with our Anonymous reporting we feel like that's something that can help a lot with our schools in creating a culture that doesn't allow for that to happen so um I said that we have a lot of people to thank Dr White Bear was a huge part of our work Dr White Bear works in the bias incident response team at OSU and so we sat with her twice and other folks on the on the crew who really helped to guide us through

088this and um I would just go to Ryan and say this is what I want to do and he'd be like okay um go ahead and do it so we did it and this is our results so now if you are wanting to file a bias incident response you don't have to March yourself up to a principal at a school and file that report you can get online and do it and you can do it anonymously or with your name the questions that you see over on the right there are the questions that we're collecting and this is going to help us with our data we're wanting to know where it happened where within a building it happened when it happened we asked about perceived motive we ask about the type of incident this is

089a change for us too we're also collecting our graffiti our racist graffiti incidents in this bias incident form we've had quite a few incidents of Bio or racist graffiti at the Garfield playground so we this was kind of a way of another place where we could record this information we asked them to tell the story and then tell us if they reported it to anyone what you're going to hear too as we go through this is we're learning every week as we run through our by is incident response so who have you reported it to or have you reported it to anyone who was it and then we were sitting in biased incident team last week going so if they reported it to that person what's the expectation of that person or what are they

090supposed to do next and so we have questions that we need to answer and kind of flesh out as well so examples of what a bias incident could be so if someone wonders there's some examples for them to look at this is the bias incident webpage I was telling you about so the button is right there the um the pages um I'm sorry the report the bias incident report can be done in Spanish it can be done by community members obviously too a couple of questions answered just so people knew what the process was and another um you know we took a lot of what we saw what we have here we saw some models in other districts specifically Albany we worked and asked some questions of Javier Cervantes who is the Dei person in

091Albany so we've got some ideas from from there as well so this was the other big change um that I wanted to make and this was based again on our work with um with Dr White Bear and OSU is creating a team that reviews the bias incidents when they are reported so if you filled out a bias incident in the Google form it obviously feeds a Google spreadsheet and that's monitored by the last person in that bias incidence Response Team there the admins specialist in my office she's responsible for tracking those reports and then she's on the other end of it making sure that um that staff are following through um just technically I make sure they're following through with like you're following through um and and also with communication but um she is um

092so so she's a lot younger than I am and she is working with this really cool project management tool called uh click up and um and loves using it and so she uses click up to help keep us in line what status is she will list all of the bias incident reports and she will list the status of every single one of them are they with the bias incident response team are they with the school are they in under investigation have they been responded to I mean she has a super delineated so we are following through that in ensuring that something happens is happening but um this bias incident Response Team meets weekly we review bias incidents that have been reported you can see the members of the team up there I'm really proud to

093say that half of this team are people of color and marsan and I included so that is uh that's a really important part of our team as well but the lenses that you see there on the right are also critically important we learned from the OSU experience that that the having someone there who has a Title IX lens can is really important because so many times these um incidents kind of they kind of you know spread out into other places and we want to make sure that we're responding appropriately and doing our duty with regard to Title IX like I said we meet weekly um these are all the things that we're we're trying to do we have been reviewing reports we have sent out action plans we are assigning staff to investigate where about

094one week away from our first bias incidents rolling back to us so I'm interested to see what that looks like next week our hope is to also every other week just kind of take a look at past reports making sure compliance is happening but also studying data and one part of this that is new for us and is something that I am trying to figure out how to do in a way that makes sense for complaints which is the follow-up how about a month later coming back to the person who filed the report and saying so how's it going like what support have you received are you are you being taken care of and what more do we need to do to make sure this kind of thing doesn't happen again so that's another piece

095of our tracking our principles are receiving a file folder filled with tools and directions very very loud bossy directions that I've put together for them but this racial language and behavior scale this is something that marcian pulled together and it is super powerful because when we think about a language and microaggressions and we also think about the age of our students who are doing things we lay that over this so marcian can can talk more about it if you wanted to do that but I think what I would like to say about it it is is it's one tool in our tool kit and when I talk to Elementary principals who have like one student who was mean to another student and it was like was it is it a full-on racial bias incident or

096are we talking about microaggression we have a place to go with that um and as you can see there's really only one place and that's microaggressions um and then after that we're we're in a whole different place but this has been very helpful for principals I don't know if you want to understand the only thing I would add is that at the beginning when we started this work we what I might consider a bias somebody else might not and so we really needed a document that allowed us to really calibrate and when an incident happened we can look at this and at least it gives us a Point of Departure so if it's you know green zone so safe respectful and responsible then we know what to do right but when we get into a

097level two level three and level four we need to address it differently and what you don't see on this page if kind of below it there's three more pages it has um has opportunities to know what staff need to do to respond opportunities to know how we need to when we need to get families involved and how to communicate and follow up with them so there's a lot more to this document but again it was just a place for us to kind of calibrate in in terms of what do we mean when we're talking about bias and what does that look like at each stage and how to respond these divisions have you had of that document it feels like you have continued it's like it's been a something of a working document that you

098continue to increase it move and change over time correct Ryan and and something that we have done too is we learn as we go so when we get feedback from students and we get feedback from parents and Guardians and community members we come back and and and revise it don't is really familiar to Elementary principles using a scale like this for all kinds of different behaviors so this is something that's really useful for them for sure so since you're kind of on this resource going to principles one of my questions is what does PD look like and at what levels and you're probably going to discuss it I am I'm getting there I promise I know you I'm there the next step is a tool um that I have this is another thing that has

099gone through three different iterations um explaining exactly what you need to do step by step number one you need to do instant reporting and tracking number two you must provide immediate Crisis Support for the person who was harmed so what these are just screen grabs of a document that has multiple steps and what is required and what and who are your resources links to different things names of people that you can reach out to if you're needing help with any of the um any of the investigative process or response process the investigation determination communication is the biggest piece so there has to be an investigation we have documents on how to conduct a thorough investigation for any thing that's happening any kind of a behavior incident we have links to the every student belongs bias

100incident guide which is a great piece of information has tons of information on restorative practices and how to keep Kids Safe um and then you have to write I'm telling I'm talking to you like your principles you have to write a written decision and so we've put together a written decision template this is what needs to go to the parents of the person of the person who was classed who was harmed or the person who was harmed if they're an adult um what has happened what have we done to intervene um what was the concern what did we find and how are we going to take care of you and how are we going to take care of the person who caused harm five six seven eight are big ones and they're hard um the

101fat number five is how are you going to continue to support the person who is harmed how are you going to use remedial action and education to support a student or a person who has caused the harm what are you going to do when that student after you've spent all that time with them to help them understand why they shouldn't say the n-word what are you going to do when they keep violating that that is a plan you need to have in place and then lastly and this is the hardest one just to be quite honest is what are what are you doing in your school Community to make sure that this doesn't happen anymore how can you change the culture of your your school community so that this isn't allowable so that is a

102those are big questions but they are something that we're we're trying to track and also the the bias incident response team will help you with as well educating our staff so not only were staff given um so the way that we have been operating with the principals and it's working really well is providing them these a slideshow and a script please present this to your staff so they did a presentation of what a bias incident is and how it's how you report and how that's changed but more importantly um we wanted to talk about how you um how you handle um when a bias incident or racism or stereotyping happens in your classroom in the moment so we offer some of these slides in an extended presentation to our staff so these four strategies about

103responding to it when it happens in your classroom a lot of teachers and staff they get the process yes there's a process so we have a form we fill it out but what do I do when the kids set it right in my room now what do I do so we ask them to interrupt and we ask them to educate question and then Echo the power of being someone who is continuing to say that whole multiplying effective voices when someone has said something and one person speaking up Echo and do that as well so it we're trying to focus on these four aspects of that progress or strategies thank you now I'm going to hand the microphone to Marcia I love this microphone um so yeah Melissa Melissa's been such a superstar in this whole

104process it's been great working with you alongside you one of the things I wanted to say about we call it our Bert team right color team I really look forward to that meeting every week because it gives us an opportunity to look at the data that has been submitted by students and staff and what I love about that meeting is that it allows us to look for themes and patterns and to respond right away so for example we were seeing the use of the n-word coming up time and time again and I'm part of a Oregon Equity directors Group which we meet a couple of times a month and it just so happened that that resource was given to us just that week so right away we emailed it out to staff our equity toses

105and our safe advisors it was a very easy to use resource that gave teachers and staff opportunities to how to interrupt that and how to re-teach and what to do and it had videos so that's what I love about that meeting that allows us to look at the data right away and to be able to respond in a timely manner and that was just so wonderful to be able to be part of that team and be able to respond the other thing I wanted to to share and I loved listening to Dale and talking in him and looking at the pictures of the construction of our buildings and seeing how some buildings are almost done in some buildings there's there's construction and framework and there's a foundation being built right and I wanted to just

106take a minute to talk about the foundation that I feel that we've laid out the cement that we've laid out over the course of the last three to four years because it's one thing and you can see the amazing work right all the um all the resources that we have to make sure that biases that we're addressing and interrupting biases in our schools and I also want to just take a moment to talk a little bit about the foundation that we laid out to make sure that we are teaching students to be able to be kind people to one another right and that's work started so that's a foundation right it's one thing having a a response to a bias but it's the same in at the same time it's important that we teach students

107to be kind to one another and to know how to interrupt and how to advocate for themselves and advocate for one for each other so I know we've talked about this in the past and you've heard some information but I think it's just important to bring it back and and inform the community too of what we're doing in our schools because I think that gets to number eight um and that's our lessons for racial equity and the objective of our of our lessons for racial Equity are to create culturally and socially just classroom spaces and in our elementary schools in our middle and our high schools we have lessons that our students are being exposed to on a regular basis that really tie to many of the standards the social social study standards the health

108standards the social justice standards and more and they're tied to those four pillars of identity diversity Justice and action and so these lessons our student our student friendly they are grade appropriate they really provide spaces for dialogue and courageous conversations in the classroom and again that's how we're building that foundation so that students feel that they can actually either advocate for themselves or advocate for a peer which is a if so the biased response tool is a wonderful way for students to be able to have a way to express what's happening in their in their classrooms so the identity piece is includes the positive identity development the diversity is how we talk about our differences and our similarities Justice is understanding assumptions biases and stereotypes so we are in a sense helping students understand the

109differences between the three right and then lastly action is what what does it mean to be kind and how do we speak up with with courage so once we've laid out that Foundation then hopefully students will will understand it see it and be able to know what to do when that happens to them and I feel like these lessons have really been an is really the essence of public education and those are the essential skills that students leave our systems that we want them to take into the workforce right to be kind to one another right okay I thought you can ask a question to be kind to one another and to be able to support one another which is exactly the conversation that was happening over here with the group earlier with the foundation

110about how we have discourse and dialogue yeah um Humanity right yeah it exactly and I see that connection right and so that is the foundation that we are trying to set and it's something that we've been very intentional and I think the word for the night is intentionality we're trying to be very intentional right so next um oh our safe students I could talk about our safe students forever oh my gosh these are just I I gotta say so proud of these students so proud of our advisors and Equity toses that work with these students every single day and um our safe students we wanted to put these pictures in front of you because we really wanted to talk about that Foundation that cement that we've been you know Paving the way is really in

111an effort to make sure that our students that we aren't doing random acts of equity right that we are being very intentional and that we are amplifying students voice so Melissa started by saying you know last spring students came to us concerned they were talking about the experiences that they had in our schools and they were asking for a call to action they were talking about truth to truth to power and they wanted us to do something and they didn't want to wait they were like this is happening right now we need to do something for the students now and they were actually talking about these were seniors that were about to leave our system and they were like please do something to support my sister my brother my neighbor right so they were very

112vulnerable in that space but they did their homework right Melissa they were prepared and so Melissa and I listened we jumped to action right away we contacted our constituents we talked to people around the community and then that's what you see today right and so I'm just very grateful that it's in process that students are using it and that we have a system for students to report so safe is again their voice it's been so wonderful to see that their voice it wasn't just in an echo chamber right their voice really made a difference and I really want to make sure that these students that advocated back in the spring I'm not sure where they are but we need to find them Melissa and thank them because that's what our students need they need to

113know that if I say something that an adult is going to do something right and we have positional and situational influence and so the fact that they came to us and we did something about it I think that that's a wonderful gift that they will leave our system with that their their voice matters and so I put some words here that really in my mind describe this the the purpose of safe it's about student voice right and he heard that tonight agency leadership it's about advocacy it's about peer mentorship self-efficacy identity development and power empowerment and compassion and I have more words it's about Humanity right and so just so thankful that they came to us when they did and that we were able to respond quickly and in in creating something that's going to

114be sustainable something that we'll be able to have for for many years to come so in terms of the work that's happening now our safe students they are along with their advisors and along with their teachers they're doing a lot of work to make sure that these that this doesn't just end up in the back burner right they are currently creating lessons doing advisor that really provide information and education for other students in their schools around how to report a bias they're also doing things continuing to educate their peers along with their advisors around for example I was at CHS last week and they were showing me the the PowerPoint side and they were talking about cultural appropriation versus appreciation and knowing that in a week or so Halloween is around the corner we just

115really wanted to make sure that students have the language that they have the awareness to ensure that we're not causing further harm and I can give you many many examples of how our schools are addressing this but I can tell you that every single school is doing something whether it be a video a PowerPoint you know an assembly to ensure that students understand what to appreciate as opposed to cause further harm right so very excited about our teams and our students I think that's what the exciting part is is we kind of we've got this going and you've seen the posters I put them in the report I'll put them up here in a second but that's not where it ends we we challenge the racial Equity ptosis in the secondary especially how can you

116help us to continue to get this word out to our students that this is available and that they um if they report they're going to be responded to so that's what marsan's talking about just different ideas that they want to pull together um and and make something happen so that it doesn't go away so this next two slides are and this is something that the students said right they said we don't just want like a little pamphlet that ends up in a corner somewhere we really want this to be visible we want posters all around our school so these are two examples in Spanish and in English if you see something say something can you go back a second and so it has a QR code our students they are they know how they can

117communicate so we're going to challenge them and say can you create a tick tock you know what is how will this engage our students and how what other multiple modalities what other multiple ways can we put out there so that way students know how to report a quick example I was talking to a parent today and they said that they mentioned something about their student having a hard day and the you know the student called the parent and the parent was able to say you know what go around the corner look at that QR code and Report what just happened so it is so it's a wonderful way of students to be able to help themselves in the school in the QR code is just a wonderful way that takes them to that that form

118that Melissa was talking about and then the next one is this is uh a definition of bias a bias incident and again it has the same QR code and an opportunity for students to understand what it is and then how to report it's the end of our presentation but we'll take questions if you have any thank you [Music] um I am almost at a loss for words and seeing like how everything came together you are amazing and um I can just see the benefits of this like rolling out really quickly and I really love the student engagement for it I'm getting all emotional about this oh my God just like getting to know some of the safe students knowing besides my own child but like the other safe students too knowing how much the difference

119is going to make to them and um them being able to take their own leadership to help implement it and help people understand how it's why it's important to report these things um he also just lots of appreciation for all y'all's hard work and everything well we have a lot of appreciation for you and all the help that you provided us so thank you foreign and then I'll come back uh the first one is when Joe and Sabrina uh presented the mental health system we practice our stump speech on what we tell the community so I'm going to practice uh what I saw today if someone tells me Sammy what's changed in the bias reporting and the way I would explain it that we have created a system with shared responsibility and accountability and learning

120environment to address bias and at different levels different severities so we can eliminate bias in our schools what would you add to that or what would you change I think that putting students at the center of all of that that this is about them this is about keeping them safe creating a safe environment for them at school and to guarantee to them that action will take action when something like this happens which I think is that the message there is is this is not how we operate here in Corvallis School District so tell us about it because we're going to do something about it thank you I'll just share the same gratitude that you've heard from our other colleagues up here on the school board it's just incredible to see the progress the listening that's

121happened for this to happen in a way that's really meaningful for those who have raised their voices and have the courage to do that to ask for this and to express how much there's a need for this I'm curious about if there's any it seems like you've you've given so much thought to how to really make sure the students are getting the message and have access and opportunity and understand I'm curious if there's any messaging to the teachers as it sounds like they are they're the conduits to the students but about their own experience if they how that message is being conveyed to them in terms of this being the tool and resource for them and then by extension to the community okay through ptas or are there other organizations where this is being shared

122or other ways this is being shared with families so they can both encourage their students but also if they were to experience something related to engagement on District grounds or or with the district or in some way in the school district Community I think those are our next steps as far as Community I know that you know I said students were first for me um just because I it there was hurting and it we didn't we couldn't handle that staff were given the the presentation by their principals so they know that they can be a part of that as well and it's not just principles our leadership team received this presentation and Department those so there's department heads there as well so technology facilities they've all also provided this presentation to their staff because this

123is about I mean every student belongs says that you know staff student and Community are supposed to be safe and free of harassment on on school grounds so it's for all of them Community is next that's going to be our next push to figure out how to do that and we can get the kids to do it you have to but we'll figure it out and the only thing I would add and again back to that Foundation go with a lot of analogies all the time but uh the foundation that I the groundwork that we set multiple years ago around how to have courageous conversations that's an art it's an art to be able to listen to somebody to listen to not to respond but to understand is an art and to be able to

124know how to identify have a conversation personal local immediate how to engage sustain and deepen conversations is takes time to internalize that protocol and one of the things that we've tried to model and people sometimes like roll their eyes like the protocol again but there's a reason why we have this protocol because oftentimes people don't know how to talk about race and they either change the subject or all of a sudden you know they're looking at their watch there's a lot of detours and so we have modeled to our administrative staff and our teachers every time that we can how do we engage in a courageous conversation how do we practice mindful listening I think somebody talked earlier about just how busy we are and how quick to assumptions people and how bias shows up

125when we're stressed when we're making multiple decisions and if you think of a life of an educator and an administered and a board member we are making multiple decisions and sometimes that's where bias shows up so just to slow down be reflective pause a little bit slow your breathing down so that way you can make good decisions that aren't in in a sense harming other people so that's part of it as well and that's been again intentional right so when I think of goal two for this District Equity systems this is a sterling example of that and I'm you know I'm deeply appreciative of how this system that you've created touches all the way from the boardroom all through District staff down to buildings down to classrooms to kids and out the families it truly

126is a systematic change you know and the reality is is that what we're fighting is systematic bias and so you've created a wonderful systematic response to that um my question for you is that our children are going to go leave our schools they're going to leave our community and I think you're unique in addressing bias in this way what are we doing to prepare them to interrupt when they're out there and in biased incidents happen and there's no reporting system how do they keep themselves how do they keep the victim whether it's themselves or somebody else safe how do they start that restorative process and you know is there a plan for that are we educating them and it's similar to the the what you were you shared with for staff yeah interrupted you know

127I've seen that protocol before so Interruption protocol and how to keep people safe are we teaching that to our kids as well or will we teach that to our children because I know my kids need to learn it and you know what and I'll make this person local and immediate in my racial Awakening in my adult life you know I didn't learn those skills until very late in my life and so I've been in biased incidents where I did the easy thing because of my lived experience and had I had the skills had I had learned that in school things might have been different so I want that opportunity this isn't just about kids of color it's about white kids too yeah totally [Music] so Vince had such a great question and thought that you

128put out there I have kind of two responses I'm sure there's more how much time do we have okay I know we are always I might mean to speak to the board all here until midnight um that I think positive identity development and that's one of the first things that we have done with our racial Equity lessons that's one of the first things we talk about with our safe students that's one of the first things that our building leaders have done during the back to school I remember last year that was a collective topic theme because you have to know yourself before you can know others right and so so much about looking in the mirror and finding you know your who you are your purpose and in that work and for some it happens

129quickly for some it's a lifetime right and it's understanding your why and your purpose and finding out what your superpowers are what gifts you bring and I think through all these activities that we do with um and I'll speak giving the example of safe students where they are able to internalize who they are they're they're able to be proud of who they are they're able to be proud of where they came from they're able to participate in engaging in relevant activities that they came up with murals videos assemblies that what builds that resilience and I think I might have heard the word resilience earlier that builds up resilience so that way when they go out into the you know quote-unquote real world they have built their resiliency their Equity muscle their voice they have practiced

130so that way when there is going to be a moment where they're going to have to stand up for themselves or stand up for another person it's not the first time they've seen it it's not the first time they've experienced it kind of like the idea of a fire drill right we have fire drills not that we're going to expect the fire every month it's because we're practicing for what might happen and that's the same thing with this work and what I've noticed is that a lot of our educators they provide space for students to practice right so they use all those great teaching strategies that turn and talk and um you know that in and they're doing um role plays for example to practice these skills in a safe setting right and we we

131also model that with our leaders and we tell them all the time if we can't have this conversation here then how are you going to have that conversation out there and so it sounds like a broken record but that's what we need to do to build that skill in order when they go to their first job and somebody says something that's really inappropriate we're teaching them not to just let it slide but to actually turn around and have a conversation with that person and so that's what we're trying to build and those are those essential skills that you can't necessarily find in the book but we feel like those skills are skills that are going to be lifelong giving right thank you you're welcome so um we are running over but I think this is

132something we all care about enough but we'll do another round of questions um so I while you were talking I was thinking about how the renaming process became so much more than I envisioned and I was thinking how last year when safe students spoke with some of our board members about their experience and spoke with you and we sort of said we need to do better again so much more than I envisioned so yeah I'm just I'm feeling very grateful to the hard work done and for Lou for sharing her expertise so that we could serve our students better um my big question when I first started reading the report was are we seeing an impact how how soon will we know if this is working and immediately you could see page three exactly data

133at the bottom yeah the number of reports is coming in and you're talking about we are a week away from yeah seeing investigations come back yeah um so I mean I think I'm not going to ask a question right now because that was my big question and I think what I really appreciate what we said tonight in that report is that it was obviously we're feeling a need and that we're doing it in a way that's making an impact right away and you make the next episode on how the the results of that then you trickle down in making actually supporting the students and making them feel safer so thank you thank you um so one more question everyone it's just same order yeah same order okay um I was gonna I pulled up I

134was gonna ask a question too about the data stuff because you all know me know you love it um but I I noticed you all added disability in there and I wanted to really um applaud that and that that's in there and make sure folk were aware that that's being tracked as well because that's often missed and um so I really appreciate that um and that the um the elementary numbers are pretty low so far which is great but um the secondary ones have already doubled from last year and I think that's really significant because it's October yeah or in like month two of school and so if that Trend continues that's gonna reveal some things I'm imagining and so I'm wondering um when you all anticipate doing a report of data is it going

135to be like a mid-year or in year or both I I would like to do a mid-year and an end of the year um just because it would kind of give us a trend to see where we're going and by the mid-year if we've taken data and handed that back to principals and said this is you know here's the problem what do you what what are you going to do you know to to change this then at the end of the year we can see if there's been any kind of movement that's that's a great thank you I appreciate hearing that I was hoping it'll be twice but um yeah and I just wanted to also um remind students how powerful their voices are because this is a result of them speaking up and expressing

136their needs to um to you all and to us um and the desire to make change based on them using their voices so I think it's really powerful absolutely foreign multiple questions and you choose which one you want to answer and I'll send the rest this is a test okay nice try nice trick [Laughter] I can always email them to me Sam yeah I'll respond yes I will um so probably the publicly facing one is uh what support do you need from the board moving forward we we need you to continue to have a goal that focuses on equity and Equitable systems that that would be the number one we need um the board to continue to support the work we're doing with our racial Equity lessons because when she talks about concrete which is

137hilarious because marcian can start a story based on anything happening in any room so today it was concrete thank you Dale um but that is really the foundation that's that that is an important part of the foundation we we're moving kids through a system who are learning who they are and how they walk around the earth and we need your support to continue to do that in our schools and I would add your visibility with our students when you attended many of you attended the safe meeting that was really impactful for them and I know you were supposed to be there only an hour and you stayed there the whole time because they had so many questions and it was the first time in many many years that they actually were able to have access

138to the school board so that made a big difference and I think it gave them the courage to say this is a normal person it's a Community member I can actually approach them and tell them what's on my mind so visibility is also a wonderful thing thank you thank you okay thank you um I think we're good I want to add that when you talk about understand their identity and walk into the world I have kids in the school district I have had kids my children come home from school talking about the lessons they've learned at school and we've had conversations about our identity and how that impacts how we walk through the world so you know I'm seeing it in action and it's great I love that so thank you thank you I'm gonna

139break my record for having a meeting run long um so the next item on our agenda is to approve the contract with the Oregon School Employees Association so Jennifer here for that do you have anything you want to share or do you just want questions if we have any I think the only thing I just would add is in working through the contract with our classified employees it was important that we maintained the positive relationship that we've had over the years and be able to acknowledge just the value that they bring to all of our students in the work so um through it you will see that most articles in the contract have had some sort of addition or change to it and that was based on really hearing what was important to our staff

140question so again I want to reiterate the values that you shared and really uh celebrate uh the uh positive work that both District staff and the association have put into uh getting this tentative agreement to really thank you and I think this is a great moment to reflect on how fortunate we are of having two parties interested in what's best for the kids and staff and and their families my question is does the financial component uh is the financial component sustainable uh assuming the legislator provide us with what they believe is a continuation of the service level so I think that one so one of the things I want to reiterate sort of what you started with is the appreciation we have for our classified staff we know that we are in a situation where

141the fund we have work to do with the legislature we have work to do both because we're expecting lower spending than we need we're also anticipating the end of federal dollars that we've had through the pandemic and third Corvallis is an expensive place to live which also impacts our student enrollment and we'll continue to see declining enrollment in our district over the next four years as you've seen before so I think all of those things play a factor in this this is one component but a small component compared to those other factors in Hydraulics that are we're walking into as we think about the next biennium thanks hey does anyone wish to make a motion before you make a motion sorry Sammy I just want to take a moment to appreciate Jennifer and Olivia and

142our other team members Kim Patton participated by Aaron beather's Nicole Hendricks Vince Adams as the representative of the board we met many times over many hours and so the work of the team to continue to be creative and come back again and again to try to find an area of ways that we could find agreement takes a lot of effort and work and so I just want to appreciate the team that participated Demi um and I'm sure I I moved to approve the contract with osea for 2022-2024. I'll second the motion has been moved by Simi and seconded by Vince that we approve the OS EA contract is there any further discussion no please no I really want to follow up on on the superintendent's comments um in my tenure on the board I don't

143think that we have had negotiations this long that were quite so challenging both the district team and the classified Union uh representation worked diligently and hard to reach this agreement they came with strong expectations working to try to get what their constituency needed and we came with a really stiff budget constraint this agreement represents a deep appreciation on the part of the District staff for the work that are classified folks do that they're essential to our district we can't have school without Reas without our custodians without our food serviced app and so you know they're an essential part of doing this work I was just really really impressed with our our District staff their Fierce attention to detail this was a very very complex process with every chapter of the agreement opening in addition to

144Finance and I think the other two themes that really stood out to me in the time that we were doing this is that staff our district leadership we're always prioritizing the needs of our staff and keeping kids at the center with that you know knowing that our staff are are the biggest predictor of success for our kids and so I'm really appreciative thank you Jennifer for your hard hard work and everyone who is on the negotiating fee moves heart belt it was raw from time to time and I'm really I'm really pleased that we've come to this agreement that we can meet in the middle so I want to share my agreements with the sentiments and the information that's what's shared uh especially Jennifer Ryan and Vince and also I want to recognize how uh

145pro-union this board is uh I've been around the states and we are one of the most pro-union focus on what's best for the children and for the reasons that's Ryan highlighted and Vince highlighted uh my yes vote is a celebratory enthusiastic yes there's no reluctance with it as a board we have to also look at what's next after one year two years and make sure we continue to put the students at the center and support our staff and I believe that comes with a cautionary note which is as we vote Yes we celebrate tonight we wake up tomorrow and we have to Advocate and this board cannot do its alone community members the staff need to Advocate as much as possible to highlight to the legislator and the federal funding sources that we cannot settle

146for less so we can continue providing Progressive agreements that takes care of our staff like this one so that's my my worry but I am very confident that we have the best advocates in our community that will apply it for our staff so in 2024 we have even better agreements not only sustain it and I think that's not going to happen without active and proactive work that we need to do with that I'm enthusiastic yes tonight let's get to work tomorrow on advocacy for more funding now I also want to express my appreciation it is sort of on the sidelines getting the updates and watching what's been going on it has been a challenging process I think um what we've come up with especially recognizing the contributions of our staff to our ability to to

147carry out a school day every day is really critical and I think recognizing that we live in a community that's as expensive and is hard to live in for a lot of people as it is you're coming to an agreement that that recognizes the value of our employees and helps them out as much as we can I think is really key um and I second Sammy is urge that we need to advocate for public education so that we can continue to carry out school every day in a way that really supports our students and students amount to the world you're ready to do whatever's next in a in a you know inspirational way so thank you to everyone who's been involved in this process um and I'm really glad we can now move to a

148vote and we can you know go forward in the school year without this uncertainty um through hanging over us like it has been for a while now so votes director I director White Bear aye director Tommy aye director Adam aye and I vote I passes unanimous so moving on the next member next member the next item I'm looking at the the writing on my computer the next item on the agenda is board member comments does anybody have anything they wish to share Madam chair so I had a conversation with the foundation staff if members have additional comments for them I know I have a few notes that I'm going to share those notes go to Angela Hibbard the interim Ed and that they'll incorporate that into their their process what would also be helpful is

149I think sending them on to Kim as well and so if you took notes tonight for your small group and you have any notes um maybe we should just send them to Kim and then you can bundle them all up yeah that's probably the best because that way we could also pull the information we need and then send it on sounds good yeah and my small group just so you all know um Frank expressed some desire to send more Thoughts by email for our you know the questions we were asking also so um if you have anything else or if other Foundation board members want to send anything else we can share that Kim also I just want I didn't say anything during the bond update because I didn't know if that was the right

150time but I was really excited to be a part of the Leticia Carson um opening as well and just to see her descendants there and um as Sarah mentioned earlier that pride in having the school named after I think it's really beautiful that we're we have these connections with family members of um who the schools are named after and have that representation is just amazing and the art is so beautiful too and the baskets too um I really appreciate that they're from a different style from this region because they're Umatilla tribal members and seeing the different weaving patterns I think is really enriching for students too because sometimes people think like indigenous people are on one in the same and there's so many differences so for them to even have that small cultural difference represented

151within the school from Eastern Oregon over here in the Willamette Valley to think about as they see things that are more local I think is really awesome too and so I just wanted to say thanks to everybody that helped pull that together and tarek Beasley for all his enthusiasm as well and getting that together and I couldn't be there for the whole thing but I was glad to be there for the part I could